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At around 11pm on Sunday, August 21, 1955, the police officers on duty at the Hopkinsville’s police headquarters were about to hear a bizarre story of UFO’s, aliens and a gunfight. Two cars pulled up filled with at least 5 adults and several children. They were highly excited and told a truly unbelievable story.

Glennie Lankford was at home on her ranch. She was not alone as she had her three young children around, together with two sons from a previous marriage, their wives and another three visitors. At round 7pm, Billy Ray Taylor went out to draw some water from the well. As he worked, he noticed a bright light streaking across the sky, only to disappear behind the trees some distance from the house. He went back into the house and told everyone what he had seen.

About an hour later a dog started barking loudly outside. It only did this when there were strangers or predators about, so Billy and “Lucky” Sutton went out to investigate. After looking around for a while they suddenly spotted acreature lurking around. They ran inside to get their guns – a .22 and a shotgun.

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Over the next three hours they would be shooting at scary faces which appeared in the windows and at strange creatures scurrying around outside. At one point a huge clawlike hand grabbed Taylor’s hair. The creatures were everywhere and didn’t seem at all frightened of the guns.

At one point they shot at one of the smaller creatures which was running along the roof and at another which was hiding in a nearby tree. When hit, it just floated to the ground and moved away. It seemed that the guns could do no damage to the creatures.The rest of the family huddled petrified inside the house, wondering what the creatures were and what they wanted. Eventually there was a lull in the battle and the family ran quickly to their cars and drove to the police station.

Over a dozen officers responded and search the site. All was now quiet. There were no marks or tracks to indicate that there were any creatures there at all. There was also nothing in the area where the bright light had been seen landing.

There was a hole in the screen at the window through which the family said a shot had been fired at one of the strange little men.

According to some sources, the police were so perplexed that they called in the Air Force the next day. They too could find no evidence and listed the case as “unidentified”.

The beings were described in the first newspaper story as “about four feet tall,” having “big heads” with “huge eyes,” and “long arms”. Later Glennie would dispute this, saying that they were only around 2 1/2 feet tall with pointed ears, clawlike hands, spindly legs and yellow glowing eyes.

The number of creatures also varies. some stories claim that there could havebeen up to 15 creatures there that night, however only two were ever seen at the same time.

What brings credence to this story is that a number of other people independantly reported having seen UFO’s in the area on that evening.

A popular explanation for the sighting was that it was merely two Great Horned Owls that were being over-territorial. The bright light could have been from a meteor as several meteor sightings had also been reported around that time.

So what really happened at the house that evening? The living witnesses, including the now grown-up children, all swear that it happened the way they said it did.